Speaker 1: It is very easy in the business world to get
discouraged because it's difficult. We tend to think that you
named it. You said something that is very common knowledge
for most early entrepreneurs. The game is rigged. It's not
meant to happen for me. It's too difficult. The game
is designed for others and the answers No, it is
difficult for all of us.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Carrie. Let'sa's Financial Survival Network where you
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Speaker 3: And welcome. You are listening to and watching the Financial
Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie LUTs Hey. We're almost
in mid March. If I didn't give you an entrepreneurial
tip idea at this point, listen to my next guest.
His name is Jose Berlanga. And Jose, you came to
this country kind of young, and now you know you've
been in a variety of businesses, but the real estate
building seems to be your thing. Now you're successful at it.
Could you have become successful in your home country or
in another country, or is it something about the United
States that just kind of attracts the successful people.
Speaker 1: Well, Kerry, thank you for having me. Great to be here,
And yes, yes, I came here when I was kind
of young, looking for a better financial future, of course,
And that's that's that's a great question, because I still
believe I've traveled a lot, as we were talking about
a little bit ago, I've spent a lot of time
in different parts of the world, and I do believe
that this is still the place where you have the
best opportunities and when you act properly, when you focus,
when you have a vision, when you understand where you're headed. Definitely,
the United States is a place that provides the most
opportunities and perhaps where you can make it the fastest.
The environment is here, the capital is here, the financing
is here, the economy for growth is all put together,
All of the right ingredients I think are here. Not
to say that it's not possible to become successful in
any other country. A democratic of course, governments that allow
you to start and build and operate your businesses but
this is the place. This is where you can do
it fastest, in the best way possible, where there are
the most opportunities.
Speaker 3: No, it's nice to hear that because we here so
much negativity in the news. The game is rigged, which
always has been. That's what I think you have to realize,
but that the opportunity still exists and the system can
work for you if you make it work for you
what you obviously have. So, builder, developer, how'd you get
into that area?
Speaker 1: Most of the businesses that I've gotten into were by
accident opportunities. I talk a lot about building the right
partnerships or surrounding yourself with the right people that share
your vision, your personality within the business world, and little
by little you start relating yourself with others that have
your saying desire to be in the business world. And
somehow I've been offered opportunities to either partner with others
or to participate at some capacity. Sometimes I have the capital,
so I join in as the investor. Sometimes I go
in as helping put the deal together. This particular one,
I was young enough, I had a very little capital,
but a lot of time to invest in starting a
construction company.
Speaker 3: So you had more time than money, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, the younger you are, the more time. As
you get older, probably you have a little more capital
and less time to contribute to the business world. So
so yeah, it's been a it's been a ride where
I always have my eyes open and I'm always paying
attention to what I love entrepreneurship and now one of
the things that I understand the most construction, construction and development.
So that's where I'm focusing and sticking to it to
the most for the most part.
Speaker 3: So looking back, you know, we all make mistakes, we
all do things that we wish we hadn't. What is
like one major thing you would change if you could
change it, or put it this way, what is one
thing that you would tell that younger version of you
that you've learned to help it help that younger version
of you grow.
Speaker 1: I love this question because if I had a I
do it, by the way, not just to myself, not
not just speaking to my younger self, but to others,
and I wouldn't tell them one thing. I would just
overwhelm them with advice, because you need a lot of
things to succeed, not just one thing that works and
one of them is just have faith, do what you
need to do, focus, be responsible, wake up and be
there present. Understand that it doesn't happen in one day.
Don't lose your patience. Don't get discouraged when things go wrong.
It is very easy in the business world to get
discouraged because it's difficult. We tend to think that you
named it, you said something that is very common knowledge
for most early entrepreneurs. The game is rigged. It's not
meant to happen for me. It's too difficult. The game
is designed for others, and the answers no, it is
difficult for all of us. It's just when we're starting
to build a business and it gets extremely difficult, overwhelming.
We tend to think that it's just us and just
because we are not getting the support and the help
from the right circumstances. But it is hard for anyone
in everyone that's starting a business. So don't get discouraged.
Just it is supposed to be difficult. You're supposed to
spend endless number of hours every day of every month
for years until things begin to come together. So just
keep trucking, keep going.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite little sayings is live life as
if it's rigged in your favor.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to It never feels like it,
but you should act on it and understand that, Yes,
if you put the time in the effort, which is
something I did, and I'm blessed I was lucky enough
to do it early enough in my life because something
else that we tend to neglect is that every business
requires a learning curve. Takes time for us, even if
we work for someone else in the same industry, and
eventually when on our own, there are always different parts
ingredients of the business that we weren't exposed to. Maybe
you were in the technical or in the design, or
in the on the number side and the financial financial side,
but now you may have to learn management, you may
have to learn how to deal with others. There's always
so much to learn when you start a business and
when you're trying to build something that it's going to
take some time in a learning curve, and we have
to allow that time to work. And the earlier you
get into the game, the better chances. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: My father always used to say, anytime you go into
a new business, you're going to pay for lessons.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and I do recommend and I think a
lot of people do, is to learn under somebody else's direction.
That's why if you're able to identify the type of business,
the type of industry that you enjoy, and before jumping
head first in attempting to start a business, start working
for someone and get to learn as much as possible
about the business, and then go on your own with
your own philosophies, with your own product or your own concept.
But at least you've learned the fundamentals. Otherwise you may
end up making some costly mistakes. Yeah, right, right when
you begin. And that's normal too. I've been there, I've
made it every mistake possible in the business world.
Speaker 3: Another of my favorite quotes is is a smart man
will learn from his own mistakes, A truly wise man
will learn from the mistakes of others.
Speaker 1: I love that one, and it's very true. Some of
us are are a little too stubborn to want to
take the example in the advice of others. The Some
people just neglect to understand that experience can be acquired
through other people and not just from ourselves. And we
tend to think that whatever decisions we make are always
the right ones. That there's some to be said about
that we need to try new things, but also take
advantage of other people's experience that have traveled those difficult
roads to building a business. And sometimes we're just not
mature enough to want to learn from other people's mistakes.
Speaker 3: So true, I could not agree with you more. Speaking
of mistakes, I see you like to mentor people. What
are like some common mistakes that you see younger people,
younger who want to be entrepreneurs making.
Speaker 1: They focus the younger generation of entrepreneurs, I would say
some of the top ones is uh. They they want
to focus on the money. They want to make money,
they want to make it now, immediate gratification, don't have
everything figured out, They just want to jump into an
opportunity for the sake of making money rather and then
you have the other extreme, they only get rich quick right. Yes, yes,
I've seen two spectrums. Either jump in because I want
to make a quick buck or I want to be
fully passionate and interested in what I'm doing, and if
everything is not perfect the way I like it, the
way I enjoy it, I'm not gonna do it. My
recommendation is there's got to be a happy medium where
you have to you need money to start a business,
you need a profit in order to grow and build
your business, but it doesn't have to be all about money.
And on the other hand, you have to enjoy what
you're doing. You have to like the industry that you're joining.
But it's not always going to be pretty and roasty
and fun and exciting. There are going to be tough days,
gibbeties that are not joyful. So meet somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 3: You know that old saying, it's not the destination, it's
the journey, correct, And that means that to me internally,
I've been happiest when I love what I'm doing, and
I know that if I do it well, and I
keep doing it and getting as good as I can
at it, like podcasting like this, that eventually the money
is just going to come to me. But you know
that's that's me talking as an almost sixty eight year
old telling myself that as twenty at a twenty year old,
I wouldn't believed myself. You know, you know that old
cliche do what you love and you'll never work a
day in your life. And because and somebody explained to
me what that really meant recently, which is that if
you're doing something you love, then you know, yeah, you
got to make money, but you would do it even
if you weren't getting paid for it. And once you
start doing something getting paid for it, trading time or money,
you know, then you're doing something you wouldn't do but
for the money. And yeah, yeah, it's kind of a
logical progression. But I didn't really understand that till recently.
And I've been very fortunate in my life doing things
that I loved. When I stopped loving them, I stopped
doing them, sometimes to my financial detriment.
Speaker 1: So this is a very very interesting and difficult subject
finding that balance, because ultimately all we have is our time,
and you are so right when you begin to sell
your time in exchange for activities that you dislike or
hate or dread and getting up in the morning. We
all there's we're so full of cliches in the world
that are true. I mean, you only live once. The
life is short. You don't want to wasteed doing these things.
I do believe that there's a period of time in
which you have to pay your dues and do some
things that are not fun for the sake of having
a better life. Down the road, and you need to
have a little bit of that, but know when it's
time to move on. You do need to make money
otherwise you cannot continue doing something that you love. That's
the typical part. And in the moment you find that, yes,
things get funner and easier and there since there's always
a probability that things are not all is going to
go well in the business world, it's less painful when
you're your day something that is pleasant. Then if you
end up doing something that you highly dislike and fail
eventually or not get what you thought you were going
to get, now you perhaps wasted years of your life
and got nowhere. So at the very least, when you're
finding activities that you enjoy, you're not wasting your life altogether.
Even if the money is not coming as fast as
you expected and it's not going to come as fast
just for doing something that you dislike.
Speaker 3: That's so true, all right. As how do we find
out more about you? How do we connect with you
on the web and where do we find you well?
Speaker 1: Jose Berlanga dot com. My book is out on Amazon,
The Business of Home Building. It's more about entrepreneurship by
the way, how to start and build businesses, but focusing
using the example of the construction industry, the residential construction industry.
Dirt Rich is my next book that's coming out in
the next time. I love it. That's a great title
on that. Yeah, yeah, and all sounds like it. It's
not just about money, it's about the philosophy of how
to invest the value that lend represents in the world
of real estate. So you can find those on Amazon
and uh and josebra Langa dot com. I'm I'm very
easy to find Google joseber Langa and and I'm there.
Hopefully there'll be much more material soon as I'm starting
to join the program and do a little more social
media since I'm in the age group where I've been
avoiding it.
Speaker 3: But no, you got to do it, man. Like we're
both probably inherently at heart private people who don't really
want to air our successes or our failures out to
the public. But this is a new world. You get
compensated for this, and you get reward words that you
can't even imagine. So never never feel embarrassed. I mean,
I won't tell somebody how much money I make. It's
none of their damn business. There are the millennials. They
don't care. They'll tell you down to the last the
decimal of making. But point being, you're giving from the
heart and that is the most important thing. Hey, I've
got a question for Jose myself. Go to shoot me
an email at klatcarrielots dot com and we'll answer it quickly.
You can find a link to Jose's site in the
show notes to this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com.
Well we ask is when you visit, please sign up
for your free newsletter. Like over seventy five thousand other
FSN community members have. Jose appreciate you coming on. Good luck,
talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Kerry, thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial
Survival Network your solution to today's trying times. For the latest,
go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial service vival Network
now more than ever,